Machu Picchu, what an incredible place. So many people talk about wanting to go there; it’s always been somewhere I’ve wanted to visit. We spent over three hours at the site, exploring every nook and cranny, marvelling at the Incan stonework, the buildings and altars, the terraces used for agriculture. While it’s true there’s been a lot of reconstruction, this doesn’t detract from the experience of Machu Picchu.

If it is on your bucket list, I suggest you make plans. It was a pretty awe-inspiring place.

You know what else was inspiring? On the train back we sat across from two older women from the United States. I talked with them the entire way to Ollantaytambo.

They talked about the journey they were on, through Peru and on to Bolivia, and I told them about our trip so far.

They talked about the USA government, the protests they’d attended, the women’s marches they’d been a part of – the ‘pussy hats’ one of them specialised in knitting! When they return to the states they’re planning their trip to Washington DC for January 2021 – as they see it they’ll be there for either an inauguration celebration or a massive protest.

We talked about our families, and we compared notes on the places we’d travelled, and the places yet to visit.

At Machu Picchu they’d hiked to the sun gate. It was a rocky, uphill climb in the hot sun that Don and I had trekked for 45 minutes and had taken these two women at least twice as long. In fact they’d visited Machu Picchu the day before, and had come back just to do that hike.

‘I really wanted to do it,” one of them said to me, ” but I’m 65, I was pretty sure it was going to be a hard trek.